Force of Gravity

By R.S. Jones

Book Overview

Paranoid yet judiciously reasonable, innocent yet calculating, strange yet strangely endearing, Emmet Barfield finds the world around him looming larger and larger the more he struggles to make his... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0670835919
• ISBN13: 9780670835911
• Release Date: June 1991
• Publisher: Viking Adult
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 1.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 10.9" x 0.2" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

an artfully-written novel, both hilarious and horrifying

I'm so glad to see this book in print again. This is a truly literary novel, stylistically brilliant and original. It's subject is Emmett, the oddly charming central character's, mental disintegration, which sounds dreary, but manages not to be, both because of the fresh, exciting writing, and the cool wit with which Jones conveys the horror of Emmett's predicament. The mental ward scenes at the core of the book are as funny as they are scary, which is saying a lot. Although mental illness is the novel's most overt subject, I read it more as a subtle exploration of of the relationship between emotional sensitivity and florid paranoia. I hesitated over the 5-star rating, but the book's undeserved obscurity and my happiness at seeing it available again swayed me in that direction.